This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: The St. Louis mayoral contest may be over, but the campaign goes on.
On Tuesday, Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed registered yet another policy difference with Mayor Francis Slay, who’s starting an historic fourth term after defeating Reed in the March 5 Democratic primary.
But what was notable was that Reed used a campaign news release to do it.
Reed campaign spokesman Glenn Burleigh, who handled Reed’s campaign missives pre-March 5, said he has returned to handle Reed’s public communications as board president. Burleigh said the aim is to pay for his work out of Reed’s campaign operation, rather than the president's official staff budget.
Reed is simply taking a page out of Slay’s political playbook, Burleigh said, referring to the mayor’s longstanding political media operation run by consultant Richard Callow, who has worked for the mayor continuously for years.
Callow and his crew handle anything related to Slay that is deemed political, while chief of staff Jeff Rainford and press secretary Maggie Crane handle any official communications.
The result, said Burleigh, is a seamless pro-Slay message operation at all times, whether or not an actual campaign is underway.
“The lesson this race taught (Reed) is that he can’t go for years without his own media operation,” Burleigh said. “Lewis is a smart guy. He recognizes a good idea when he sees it.”
Burleigh added that his work on Tuesday was “gratis” because Reed still owes money from his loss, even as he prepares for a re-election bid in 2015. The aim is to set up a formal campaign-financed media shop as soon as Reed's debt is paid off, Burleigh added.
Reed’s latest campaign report, also filed Tuesday, showed him with a campaign debt of $41,208. Slay’s report, filed a week ago, showed the mayor still had a campaign surplus of $374,221.
When contacted for comment, Callow sounded flattered by Burleigh’s compliment. But then the consultant, known for playing hard ball, got serious.
Burleigh can’t work for free without violating state campaign law, Callow said. At minimum, he added, Burleigh will have to report his services as an inkind campaign donation, unless Reed changes his mind and makes Burleigh part of his official staff.
Callow observed, however, that Reed’s previous use of official staff to post items to his private, political website also posed legal problems.
Slay, Reed spar over city's cable TV operation
The issue that prompted Reed's resurrected campaign operation – the mayor’s call to eliminate two-thirds of the city’s roughly $900,000 annual budget to pay for the city’s cable TV operation – also illustrates what Burleigh is talking about: Slay’s long-standing, and generally successful, two-track approach when it comes to media-messenging.
Slay is proposing to trim $650,000 from the city's cable TV operation, which would require staffing cuts, to pay for 13 police officers and for a new full-time employee in the city’s health department. The mayor maintains that the shift is needed because the city is losing a federal grant that had been covering the costs of 20 police officers.
On Tuesday, however, Slay failed in his first attempt to slash the cable TV from the city's pending 2014 budget. The mayor formally made the proposal at a meeting of the city’s three-member Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the city’s chief fiscal body. The members include Slay, Reed and Comptroller Darlene Green.
Slay’s proposal died for lack of a second. Green and Reed said they support the cable station because some city residents watch it. Slay says official numbers show that very few do.
Said Reed in the campaign release sent out by Burleigh: “As far as I’m concerned, public safety is job No. 1 in St. Louis, but the mayor’s idea to close the communications department is not the solution. We need to be addressing our public safety needs, but with a comprehensive approach. I believe that means utilizing the communications department to its full capacity.”
Reed’s statement continued, “For many of our older citizens, the city’s cable channel is their primary way of knowing what’s going on in our city’s government, which is a vital public service. I think that we should be expanding its public safety role to keep citizens greater informed about crime trends and what they can do to assist the (police department) in more effectively fighting crime in their neighborhoods.”
Slay's two operations -- official and political -- respond
Crane, the mayor’s press secretary, replied in a subsequent statement: “This amendment is about setting priorities, and the mayor's No. 1 priority is to reduce crime. He said that when he visits neighborhood meetings across the City and is out in public, not once does he hear anything about STL-TV (the city’s cable channel)... not positive, not negative, just nothing.
“The mayor strongly believes -- and hears from city residents -- that they are concerned about crime in our city," Crane continued. "So is the mayor. So if we're going to spend nearly $1 million on something, the mayor says we need to put it where it can have the biggest impact. The mayor believes that lies in the (police department).”
Callow, meanwhile, offered up the political context when asked about Reed’s campaign release. Callow paraphrased his Tweet on the subject: “I said that I thought that some 2015 challenger would be framing that release…"
“I don’t think that a $900,000 a year cable station is defensible,” Callow explained, repeating the mayor’s call for using the money for police instead. “I suspect that Lewis’ primary opponent in 2015, whoever that is, will seize upon whatever release he sent today and use it in his campaign.”
Callow concluded dryly, “I would say that Lewis’ new communications operation is off to a bumpy start.”
Burleigh has subsequently taken issue with Callow's conclusion. "Richard knows that when you're responding to a story, then the other side is moving a message," Burleigh said. "The fact that he spent his entire response trying to tear Lewis down shows that President Reed's reelection campaign is off to a good start."
